A Lonely Hero
by TheGhostKing11
Summary: Percy Jackson has been missing for three years. Anyone who has tried to search for him has never returned leaving Camp Half-Blood in danger as a certain demigod with a liking for death nears the age of sixteen. Soon he will be the one to make the choice.
1. Chapter 1

Reviews are very much welcome and constructive criticism is appreciated:)

The first chapter is set in the past. The main story itself is set three years after this chapter.

**I Eat Blue Cake**

I was walking down a corridor, I thought it was a corridor but I couldn't really tell, it was dark with a black and white checkered floor, there were dark stains splattered over the floor. My eyes jolted straight ahead before I had the chance to figure out just what the substance that was scattered over the floor was, truth is I _knew _what it was, I just didn't want to confirm it. The corridor was so narrow and the more I walked the more I felt it closing in on me, tighter and tighter, darker and darker. _There's nowhere to run, Nico, nowhere. _I heard a voice, it wasn't just any voice, it had a tinge of metal to it, a scraping sound, deep and dull yet somehow familiar.

I dragged my feet farther down the corridor. I heard a sharp squeak as my foot slid against the dark substance on the floor, the checkered floor coming closer and closer until I fell flat on the floor. The first thing I fell was cold, I forced my palms onto the freezing floor, I pushed with all I had in me to try and get myself upright again. _Nobody will help you young demigod, you're alone, unwanted, unwelcomed even in the place your kind call home. _I pushed harder, the voice only making me want to get up more. I tried to speak, to tell the voice to 'shut up' but nothing came out but silence.

_So alone, with only the dead for company, would you really call that company? _The voice was only angering me, I finally got myself standing looking at the darkness ahead but the corridor was already thinning. "SHUT UP" I yelled, my words were clear and loud, finally my voice was working. I heard a foul laugh echo from wall to wall, bouncing from the darkness to more darkness.

That was when I woke up; I jolted forwards in a cold sweat with a figure in front of me looking more worried than I felt. "Nico?" the worried figure stared right at me, his hands on each of my shoulders, his black hair a mess, his sea green eyes wide so I could almost see the crashing waves behind them.

I was breathing heavily, gasping for air "I… I…" was all I could manage before squeezing my eyes shut trying to come to terms with what I'd just seen.

"Bad dream?" His voice sounded calm, like he knew just what had happened to me and I knew he did. When people like me had dreams they were never good, they were usually prophetic and that really wasn't good.

My head was throbbing, if my eye lids weren't holding my eyes back they felt like they would've been falling out of my head. I nodded, my hands holding my face, I just wanted the feeling to go away. My messy hair was stuck to my forehead from the cold sweat. "Percy" I mumbled, I knew if I had tried to say anything else it would've came out like 'ughifhalp'. I pushed my hair away from my face opening my eyes just enough to see the boy in front of me, he looked at me with a hint of sadness, he'd felt just how I was feeling now many times. His hands left my shoulders as he stood, allowing the cold presence that I carried with me (being the Son of Hades and all) to engulf me again.

Percy knelt down beside me a few seconds later with a glass of some sort of blue substance, no surprise there. "Hey, drink this, it might help" he handed the glass over to me and I took it without hesitating. As soon as the liquid touched my lips I was overcome with yet more coldness although it mended my dry mouth so I wasn't complaining.

"Thanks" I muttered, placing the glass on the empty patch of floor next to me. The throbbing in my head had died down just a little allowing me to concentrate. "That was…" I began but Percy hushed me.

I looked around the room; everything looked so different with the moonlight glowing through the window. Candy wrappers and leftovers of blue cake were scattered around the room, most of the wrappers shimmering in the light. Now I'd realized just how messy we'd left the place. Percy must've been watching were my gaze led to because then he spoke "I'll clean that up in the morning, or mom will" his voice was soft.

"Percy" I turned to him, I felt stable enough to tell him about my dream, I knew I could trust him with it and maybe it could help even if it scared the heck out of me. "I, my dream" I said, his eyes were watching me, waiting for me to tell him the details, so I did, not all of it though. I could tell Percy knew I was holding back on something but he didn't try to force me to continue.

"What a great birthday" he mumbled, he added a grin but neither of us laughed, I guess with the whole war approaching, (the war I became part of although I didn't really want to) there was nothing to laugh about.

"You get some sleep, I'll just erm, try and find out more about what I was meant to be telling you" I said, I wasn't so sure it made any sense at all, especially with all the unneeded pauses I was making.

"No" Percy replied, almost a second after I'd finished. I hadn't gotten the chance to tell him last night when I appeared right in front of Percy admiring his plant that shone like the moon. He'd offered me inside, we ate blue cake and all sorts of other food which explained the mess we'd left his room in. It was nice, I finally understood why friends liked hanging around together, just doing completely normal things.

I knew what Percy was thinking, his eyes focused on a spot somewhere behind me, he was thinking we should go back to camp and tell Chiron about my dream but he was too scared to say anything because he knew exactly how I felt about that place.

"This is bad Nico, Kronos could be trying to use you or scare you onto his side" Percy said, a sense of worry to his voice.

"We don't know it's Kronos Percy" I replied, though I was pretty sure the voice belonged to the crazy Titan god who was building his strength to take over Olympus and if he had me on his side who knows what would happen. I told myself over and over again I wouldn't join him, if I had to choose, I'd fight with Percy.

Percy's eyes shifted so he was looking straight at me but he didn't say anything, as we sat there in silence for a few minutes we both knew who the voice belonged to and just how bad this could be.

"Yeah, you're right" he finally said, I knew he was just trying to make me feel better, trying not to get me scared. I wasn't sure what happened next because everything went black, Percy mumbled something about sleep and scrambled back into his bed and I flopped back down on the floor pulling the blankets over my head.

I didn't sleep well the rest of the night, my eyes were scared to flutter shut in case of an unwanted dream. I don't know how I managed to get myself to sleep but the next time I opened my eyes I was attacked by blue, Percy's room in the day light. I pushed myself up allowing the blankets to fall to my waist they were also blue, believe me I had already tried hunting for anything black around here and came out unlucky.

"Feeling better?" I heard Percy's voice as he sat down beside me with a plate of pancakes, _blue _pancakes. At first I thought I was hallucinating but as my eyes adjusted to my surroundings I realized how wrong I was.

"Do you have anything that _isn't _blue?" I asked, lifting one of the pancakes and hovering it under my nose, it smelled really good, just like the blue cake had. I nibbled off the edge as it filled me with warmth, it tasted even better than it smelt.

"Nope" Percy laughed as he too lifted a pancake from the plate. It felt nice to be sitting here with company, a real friend, I guess anything beats the Underworld. We finished the remaining pancakes and Percy chucked the plate in the middle of the room, were most of the wrappers had been thrown.

"So, what you were going to tell me last night…" Percy said as though things were about to get serious. I pulled my knees up to my chest and leant against Percy's bed side table, it's not like I weighed much so it wouldn't tumbled over into the wall. I'd forgotten all about the reason I'd came here, the offer, what I was going to talk to him about, I'd kind of hoped he'd forgotten too.

I watched the blanket, the curves, grooves and twisted shapes that had been formed from it being left lazily, it almost _was _like the sea, each curve, each bump a wave. I felt my head drop causing my hair to fall over my face which is just what I wanted it to do, meaning I didn't have to look at Percy.

"It doesn't really matter right now" I replied, of course it mattered a lot, it would probably be the only way he could beat Luke but right now my head was lightly pounding and my eyes were stinging, begging me for the sleep they had missed out on. I shut them tightly hoping to trick them into thinking that just for a second they were getting what they wanted but that second turned into something else. The blackness that had attacked me before returned and with the irritating screech of metal against stone and I felt myself sinking into the waves of the sheets.


	2. Chapter 2

**Home Sweet Hell**

Camp half blood, home sweet home... Who am I kidding? It was only a few years ago I was telling myself I'd never step foot here again. I was going to find my mother while everybody else panicked and prepared for war but of course I never got to do so because of that night. Sometimes I wish I hadn't turned up at Percy Jackson's house, maybe then the war would be over by now, you see it was his job to make a decision that would cause Olympus to rise or fall. So you can see why he's pretty important. That's where things got slightly out of hand for me, I started having weird dreams involving mr metal man (that's Kronos to most of you), and Percy just disappeared, that's really all I remember.

Now, three years later it's me the one who's the child of the prophecy, me the one who has to make this stupid choice that has been forced upon me. I never asked to be the hero, I never not once wanted to stand in the shoes of Percy Jackson (not literally, he doesn't own a black pair).

I shook my head sharply with the slightest hope it would jumble all my memories into different quarters of my brain, part of me just hoped they would disappear and I would wake up and Percy would be there and I would be twelve again and he'd say "I'm off to fight Kronos, see you later Nico" and ruffle my hair in an older brotherly way.

I pulled my knees up allowing them to support my elbows as I rested my fingers against my temples, this thinking had giving me a terrible headache, boy was I use to them by now. I started to wonder about Percy, it'd had been three years and I couldn't lie I missed him. He had been the only one who had even slightly understood me, he knew what it was like to have all these powers and he knew how it felt to be the prophecy kid.

I started to circle my fingers against the spots where they lay, easing the slow pounding of my head if only slightly. Percy was still on my mind, I knew he was out there somewhere, Chiron had claimed he was dead, gone. I had lost count of the many times I demanded he wasn't, I knew when people died, I'd channel most of it out because well no one wants that feeling of someone dying every second of every day but with Percy I allowed myself to know, I wanted to, plus it gave me an ounce of hope over these three years, hope that maybe one day he'd find his way back here or he would be found and I'd be out of this war.

My eyelids were feeling heavy, my head almost numb, all this thought had myself almost head first into snooze land. I glanced up at the dimly lit clock hung against the farthest wall, that was the only source of light in the room, if you could call it light, after all you had to squint to see anything.

It was still early morning, no one would be around now, I was still yet to hear Chiron's clicking and clopping. That was one of the benefits of living in the Big House, you knew if Chiron was awake it was time to get up for breakfast or we were in danger. It's pretty neat being the child of the prophecy, even if the cons outweigh the pros. They didn't dare throw me back in Hermes Cabin, plus that place is too overcrowded. Instead they set me up in a small unwanted room in the Big House, I could choose to decorate it as I wished and I could call it my own.

After a few minutes I allowed the drowsiness to overtake me, I could easily fit in another hour or two of sleep before the strong pitter patter of Chiron would be heard.

That hour or two of sleep I was talking about went down the drain as I woke up naturally around three hours later. I groaned, rolling over on the messily made bed covers, so much for breakfast Nico I told myself.

I dragged myself out of bed, the headache I'd been so thankfully not missing whilst asleep lingering at the back of my head. I reaches around casting my arms into darkness for a few seconds before firmly clasping my fingers around the handle that belonged to the dresser. I was use to finding things in the darkness, I knew where everything was but my sleepiness had a decided it would be ever so kind to me and throw on a few seconds to my ability to find things.

After a five minute battle with sleep and myself I finally managed to find a clean set of clothes and headed to the en-suite Chiron had thankfully added into the deal. That meant I didn't even have to communicate at anybody if I had to go to the shower. Unfortunately I couldn't get out of meal times, though I didn't have to sit on a table with a pile of demigods staring at me, mumbling and whispering questions to each other and Clarisse being... Clarisse. I had a space up front with Chiron and Dionysus (who really wasn't around much but it'd be disrespectful not to mention his name I guess), so I could have every single demigod mutter about me. I'll admit it wasn't so bad anymore but if me and Clarisse got into one of those fights Clarisse almost made sure she got into with me you could bet the whole of the Ares table would be staring whilst the beast herself ranted on about crap I'd gotten so bored of I had learnt to tune it out.

Once I'd showered, I pulled on my clean clothes, still at war with sleep though I was winning for now I opened the door as it whined out a creak. I grimaced at the sound, if anybody didn't know I was awake they sure would now. I closed the door with another whine and tried to take each step down the stairs as slowly as possible, they didn't creak as bad as the door but they still shared an even amour of noise with me.

I heard mutters as soon as I reached the middle of the stairs and with each step I took they grew louder, they sounded like they were in a disagreement, though they were still quiet, there was defiantly two people in conversation at the base of the stairs, a conversation they clearly didn't want to be overheard.

"...He needs to know, the sooner he knows maybe he can help us figure it out" I knew that voice, a voice I'd learnt to trust over these years. It was Annabeth Chase, suddenly I felt a sinking feeling somewhere in my chest and I came to a halt, listening, awaiting the other voice.

"Something more severe awaits us Annabeth, it's been three years and no sight of Kronos, he's had three years to build up his defences, three years to find new bodies, I worry for what this could mean for the future of Camp" defiantly Chiron, and he was obviously worried, more so than usual. "I have called you here not because of the prophecy but because I have news, I may have a clue to the whereabouts of..." he was cut short as Annabeth gasped, I think I knew just as much as her what these whereabouts might be. Percy's?

I took a step forward and regretted it as soon as I did because it was then the stairs decided to make a nice screech and give away my whereabouts. "Nico?" I heard Chiron and quickly rubbed as eyes giving them the impression I had only just woke up as Chiron quickly followed by Annabeth's head snuck around the corner at the bottom of the stairs.

"G'mornin" I mumbled, peering through my clenched fists as the two faces before me seemed to believe I had only just awoken and hadn't heard an utter of their conversation. I caught a smile from Annabeth, clearly my sleepiness was amusing to her. "Come on death boy, I saved some breakfast for you" she said, in a completely different tone to that which she'd used with Chiron, I started to wonder if I did hear that conversation but the sinking feeling reminded me it was in fact real.

We sat on the porch of the big house, in the shade just where I liked it. Annabeth had brought me everything and even thanked Hades on my behalf before she left the mess hall. "Thanks" I mumbled, shifting in my seat as I stared down at the plate full of bacon, eggs, chicken, salad, you name it it was there. I only realised how ungrateful I had sounded after I began poking a slice of bacon with the tip of my fork. "Really, thanks" I added, trying to twist my mouth into a smile but I couldn't help thinking about the conversation, I was sure Annabeth was talking about me, what did she know that I didn't? Why was she hiding it from me? I suddenly felt like I had lost Percy again but this time I had lost the honest Annabeth I'd come to know so well.

"I know what you're thinking" she said, I didn't have to raise my head to know she was staring at me. "I know you heard us" she continued, okay so I knew Annabeth was smart but this smart? I shoved a few fork fuels of bacon and salad into my mouth waiting for her to elaborate on her comment, because unless she could see through walls I really didn't know how she'd known I was there.

"Look, Chiron insists I don't tell you, at least not until you're sixteen, which only half makes sense" she said, I glanced up at her my eyes must have been full of confusion by then because I certainly felt it. "It's not like I don't want to!" she added and I could tell from her voice she was telling me the truth.

"You're hoping you can find Percy and he'll be the one to fulfil the prophecy again" I said after taken a gulp from the glass Annabeth had also brought with her. She was staring at me, I could see my words sinking into her head.

"No!" she almost yelled.

"it's okay Annabeth, I get it, I've had three years to figure it out, no one wants me to be the demigod to make that choice" I laughed but it only came out sullen. "Who would ever want the guy who can raise dead people to be the hero?" I said, letting my emotions pour out through my voice, I really wasn't sure how I felt, lonely was a good word for it.

Annabeth watched me, what did she expect, a full on speech? I was tired and finally realising just how useless I was here, how much I didn't belong. "That's not true Nico, don't let them things get to you, when people say things it doesn't make them true, you know what Clarisse is like" I let her words sink in an out just as fast as she had said them.

"I want to find him" I said, my words coming out stronger and more confident than I felt. "You're going to need me" I added, throwing a couple more unwanted forkfuls of food into my mouth.

"Nico... I... It'll be dangerous, people have died, and Chiron hasn't even told me what he found out yet" she replied, a sense of worry in her voice but I already had a come back.

"Who better to have with you than me? You can't go alone" I said calmly yet convincingly and it must have worked because within a few seconds Annabeth's mouth grew into a grateful smile.

"If you insist Death Boy" she said.


End file.
